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Dubai World to expand hotel network despite global financial crisis

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-11-19 15:21

ABU DHABI-- Dubai World, a holding company that manages and supervises the portfolio of businesses and projects for the Dubai Government, is planning to expand its hotel network despite the current global financial crisis, local newspaper Gulf News reported on Wednesday.

Instead of tightening its purse strings, Dubai World seeks to take advantage of the credit crunch that swept the world, it said.

"There are opportunities and you sometimes have to assess opportunities in a crisis.... We have perhaps missed opportunities in past crises," Dubai World's Chairman Sultan Ahmad Bin Sulayem was quoted as saying.

Sulayem took the newly opened Fontainebleau Miami Beach resort as an example, the latest investment of the company in the United States. A subsidiary of Dubai World bought 50 percent of the hotel 's stake at a price of 375 million U.S. dollars in April.

The credit crunch that made many companies hungry for cash had undoubtedly helped secure the investment in the Fontainebleau Miami Beach resort, he said.

"Had we done this investment two or three years ago, it would have been four times the cost," he said.

Launched in July 2006, Dubai World manages a number of leading companies including the world's leading port operator DP World, Dubai Multi Commodities Center and Nakheel, the developer of the Palm Islands.